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Kenney's Healthcare
Kenney wants to cut healthcare funding and privitize it more. Lots of people have said why his ideas are ridiculous. He's talked about cost per capita and wait times. Budget Keith Gerein: Jason Kenney's prescription for health care relies on false diagnosis: CIHI, the same organization Kenney used to quote wait-time statistics, reports that Alberta’s health system has the lowest administrative costs in the country at 3.3 per cent of overall spending — well below the national rate of 4.5 per cent. While the Conference Board of Canada reports that the average ratio among public agencies is one manager for every nine workers, the average AHS manager oversees 31 employees. As such, a review of AHS may find some pockets of inefficiency, but it’s unlikely to produce vast savings. The idea that AHS is plagued with an army of needless paper pushers is a dubious argument trotted out for years by the former Wildrose party. Trevor Tombe on twitter gives a source and says: *"This is important context. Admin and 'waste' isn't the issue. AB's spending is higher than average almost exclusively for two reasons: (1) physician compensation, and (2) hospital spending (mostly compensation, and number/size of rural hospitals)." David Climenhaga addresses the cost of management as well: *"It’s a poorly guarded secret of health care in Canada that most managers in the system do essential work without which front-line health care, like that provided by the Registered Nurses for whom I do my day job, would suffer." Darren Mazzei‏ on twitter: * Currently administrative costs are 3% of the AHS budget and lowest percentage in Canada. >50% of the budget is labor force. How do you cut the budget without impacting frontline staff? * Frontline wage is ~20% higher in AB than other provinces. Last decade saw large increase matching private sector wage growth and AB cost of living during the era of $100 oil. Matching needs-services-resources important when discussing health care budget otherwise waitlist grows. Private Health Care From Global News: UCP Leader Jason Kenney wants to explore private health-care options * he says some more privatization would help with overhead cost and wait times * he wants AHS to conduct a review focused on this United Nurses of Alberta President cautions Albertans about UCP privatization talk: * "In Alberta, we have already tried allowing private surgical clinics to bid into the public system and the result was Albertans ended holding the bag when the surgical corporation went bankrupt, Smith said. Not including additional funds in the face of inflation and population growth results would in effect be a funding cut for health care, she said." The Unions of Healthcare Professionals, HSAA, Kenney’s zero-credibility plan could cut $1.2 billion from health care: * "Kenney said there were no plans for lay-offs, echoing the language of his fellow Conservative hero Ralph Klein in the 1990s. Klein broke his promise and thousands of health-care workers lost their jobs after seeing wages rolled back by five per cent. There is simply no reason to believe Kenney this time. ... He talks about privatization without acknowledging the risks that private companies suck money out of care, that they treat only simple cases while leaving costly ones to the public system and that they put patients at risk when they go out of business,”